The present invention relates to the use of a fluid wave to optimize biomechanical correction in the human foot. In addition, this invention allows for the adjustment of the patient to a neutral position by easy and practical means without the guide of a podiatric physician in easy, uncomplicated pathomechanical conditions. This apparatus will also allow the podiatric physician to help the patient obtain more efficient biomechanical alignment of the foot in gait in the more complicated pathomechanical conditions.
Presently, foot orthoses are made for controlling gait by controlling various forces during gait, thus giving a "more normal" alignment of bony structures. The orthoses are presently fabricated by pressing a malleable acrylic thermoplastic to a plaster impression of the patient's foot. This impression captures the foot in the neutral range of motion of the subtalar joint and the midtarsal joint locked in pronation. In addition, certain conditions warrant various cants to be applied to these orthoses relative to the cant of the patient's neutral subtalar position in relation to the leg.
The resultant orthoses yield a more optimum bony alignment of the feet for a normal gait. The orthotics are fabricated with various materials which control or limit motion from a greater to a lesser degree depending on the rigidity of the fabricant. Examples of these fabricants include Rohadur, plastizote, fiberglass, corex, cork, polyethylene, and others. While these orthoses are designed to achieve a certain degree of success by means of controlling body forces and gravity forces during gait, they fail to achieve any uniform success because they attack the problems of gait by limiting motion, thus forcing all feet into one categorical alignment to optimize gait efficiency. However, in so doing it also creates a static position of the foot despite the fact that the foot goes through various changes during gait.
The foot consists of twenty-eight (28) bones with thirty-eight (38) articulations and each bone and articulation a different size and shape in each individual. It is an astronomical task to commutate the probability of an exact force through any particular joint at any particular time during gait. It is, therefore, imperative to permit the bones of each foot to carry out its motion as determined by its morphology. However, recovery from this motion must be aided for maximal foot functioning gait.